After more than three years, Taiwan finally reopened its borders — and I was able to return to the Philippines, a country I used to visit constantly before the pandemic.
This trip brought me back to the little island I'd been longing for: Malapascua (Chinese transliteration: 媽拉帕絲瓜), known to some as Malapascua or "Silk Gourd Island." Malapascua is a small island off the northern tip of Cebu.
Think of it as a second-tier remote island. It's a little off the beaten path and not especially famous as a tourist destination — yet it's an absolute paradise for divers! That's because this is one of the only places in the world where you can see Thresher Sharks almost every single day.
How Do You Get There?
We flew directly from Taiwan to Mactan–Cebu International Airport — just a 3-hour flight. From the airport, you take roughly a 3.5-hour drive to Maya Port, then a 30–40-minute boat ride to arrive at the island.
Boats run every 30 minutes, but departures are cancelled if there are fewer than 10 passengers. You can also charter a private boat for a group. One important thing to note: ferries heading to Malapascua only run until around 5 p.m. — they stop in the evening. If you want to reach the island on your arrival day, make sure to book a flight that gets you into Cebu before noon.
Most divers fly into Cebu on the morning of day one, head straight to the port by private car, grab lunch along the way or ask the driver to stop at a fast-food drive-through, arrive at the port around 4 p.m., and make it to the island around 5 p.m.
The Thresher Shark gets its name from a tail that matches its body in length — that elongated tail is actually used to stun prey. When they swim, their tails sweep through the water like graceful ribbons, and their oversized, perfectly round eyes are simply adorable. I'll never forget the moment years ago when one swam up close and looked me right in the eye. I was moved to tears.
Thresher Sharks normally inhabit deep water well beyond the reach of recreational divers. Only in the early morning do they ascend to shallower cleaning stations — once the sun rises higher, they disappear back into the depths.
To see the sharks, you'll gather at around 4
a.m. and take nearly an hour-long boat ride to the dive site. Yes, it really is that early! But getting up before dawn is absolutely worth it for the Thresher Sharks.Before the pandemic I made three trips here. Back then, the cleaning station sat at a depth of around 30 m — a ledge on the edge of a cliff, with a long rope stretched in front to mark the boundary divers couldn't cross. The sharks would glide back and forth along the cliff face, letting the cleaner fish there give them a proper spa treatment, while divers watched from the platform like an audience at a 4DX cinema. Dive guides kept everyone in line and made sure no one strayed past the rope.
Most of the time the sharks kept a comfortable distance from us, but on a quieter day with fewer divers, I watched a Thresher Shark slowly heading straight toward me — and then it glided right over my head, close enough that I could have reached up and touched it. The awe and emotion of that moment are etched into my heart forever.
On this return visit, I discovered the dive site had changed. A Tiger Shark had moved into the original cleaning station at Monad Shoal, so Kimud Shoal has now become the Thresher Sharks' favourite bathing spot.
It's stunning here. The platform sits at just over 10 m and is dotted with clusters of coral, teeming with colourful reef fish. Thresher Sharks frequently glide up onto the platform to enjoy the services of those little fish. I noticed there seem to be more Thresher Sharks here now, and they've grown noticeably less shy. Our dive guides instructed everyone to stay close to the bottom of the platform and not swim higher than the sharks to avoid spooking them. Some of the Thresher Sharks even seemed curious about us, circling between different groups of divers with the dedication of a part-time employee working every table. You look at me, I look at you — the moment you lock eyes with those big round eyes of theirs, you just melt.
My guess for why they're willing to approach divers:
- They've figured out that these creatures won't hurt them.
- They're curious about these bubble-blowing beings.
Everyone now has a much better chance of coming face to face with them up close.
The Thresher Shark Cleaning Station
On top of all that, the Thresher Sharks are now spending much longer at the cleaning station than before. On my first dive this trip, I came up, had breakfast, kitted up for a second scuba tank — and they were still there!
Being able to see Thresher Sharks every day across two full dives is an absolute dream. That said, the seabed is carpeted with branching corals, so divers absolutely must maintain good neutral buoyancy or find a clear sandy spot to hover — please don't crush corals that have taken years to grow just to get a better angle on the sharks!
One day, we encountered an exceptionally bold Thresher Shark that circled around us for a long, long time. Even friends who were diving with a different group that same day independently sent us videos of the very same shark — its "solo tour" had everyone beaming with joy!
A Friendly Thresher Shark
But on closer inspection, we noticed a fish hook lodged in the corner of its mouth. This new dive site was actually discovered because local fishermen — who fish in these waters — tipped off the dive guides that they kept seeing Thresher Sharks leaping out of the water. That's how everyone found out the sharks had moved here.
Every day we watched many fishermen working these waters, each in a tiny outrigger boat, their livelihoods depending on whatever fish they could catch. If the fishermen had other sources of income, they wouldn't have to spend every day out here hauling in lines — and those hooks wouldn't end up snagging marine life. But this is one of the great dilemmas of our time: it's complicated, and there are no easy answers.
Since the pandemic, a fair amount of coral in the area has already been damaged by divers. I'd encourage anyone planning a visit to hold an Advanced Open Water Diver certification or higher and have around 50 dives of experience, with solid command of neutral buoyancy, before heading out to dive with the Thresher Sharks.
We come here to be charmed and healed by these wonderful creatures — so let's take care of the Thresher Sharks in return, and help protect the beautiful environment they call home, so they can stay there for years to come.
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